by Pam Brink

Created on: June 11, 2008   Last Updated: May 01, 2012

Temptation is everywhere.  The sight of food or people eating makes you want some too. Whether you are at work and the cardboard box of donuts is passed around, whether you are at a church social, wedding or a friend’s house; food is always present.  Worse, it is food you are trying not to eat. When you are watching TV, the food commercials deliberately try to make your mouth water for their food. When you go to the movies, the smell of roasting popcorn assails your nostrils.   Even books can stimulate temptation by describing people eating together. 

Eating is an act of survival.  If we don’t eat, we will eventually die.  Eating is also a social act.  We eat when we are among friends, at a social gathering, a business luncheon or gala dinner.  Eating, for some, can be a hobby or lifetime career.  For others, eating provides comfort or recreation. We eat when we are alone. Some of us eat all day long. 

Some of us have become addicted to the process of eating; others of us have become addicted to a particular food.  We are just as much under the control of these habits as an alcoholic is under the control of alcohol.  

Because food and eating are our major concern every day, small things trigger a desire to eat. 

Just because you have decided to break the stranglehold food has over you and your life does not mean you will be free from temptation. Instead, like any other addiction, as soon as you try to avoid certain foods, you find yourself constantly confronted with the foods you crave. 

Buying groceries can be a major source of temptation. Forbidden foods pop up throughout the store and candy confronts us at the checkout counter.  The smell of fresh baking makes our mouths water. These are deliberate marketing strategies by the store manager designed to get you to buy the product. 

How do you combat grocery store temptation?  Eat before you shop so you aren’t hungry when you pass a forbidden food.  If you want to sabotage your own weight loss effort, shop when you are hungry.  Hunger challenges resistance. 

Combating TV commercials begins with reducing the amount of time you watch TV and making sure you are not hungry when you do.  Otherwise you will go rooting around the refrigerator and cupboards to find something to eat.  If you don’t have any forbidden foods in the house, it’s easier to combat the temptation but if it’s in the house – you are a goner. 

Since social events usually include foods, you will be tempted at every social event unless you have something to eat before you leave home.  People will pressure you to try this and that, some more forcefully than others, and you will try it if you feel you would hurt their feelings if you don’t.  But aren’t they hurting you by insisting you eat foods that are not good for you? The struggle to be polite and sabotaging your diet can be disastrous. 

Are you a food junkie?  Can you eat “just one?”  One piece of candy becomes a bag.  It’s the same whether it’s cookies, chips or nuts.  Sometimes resisting the temptation is simply a matter of not opening the bag.  Opened bags are an invitation to sabotage your diet. 

In the end, it all boils down to a matter of self discipline. If you are unable to discipline your desires and control your cravings every time you see and smell food, you will spend your life sabotaging your own weight loss efforts.

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